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AK-47 Automatic Rifle

Description

Physical Description

Chinese-made AK-47 assault rifle, marked with "66" in a triangle.

General History

The AK-47 was designed by Mikhail Timofeyevich Kalashnikov. Kalashnikov was drafted into the Soviet Army in 1938; while serving as a tank driver-mechanic, he became interested in the operation of firearms. After being seriously wounded in 1941, he was given six months of leave, and spent that time designing a submachine gun with his machinist friend Zhenya Kravchenko. In 1946 Kalashnikov sent the Main Artillery Commission in Moscow his drawings for a new gas-operated rifle based on the M43 cartridge. The committee gave him the go ahead to create a prototype. From 1946 to 1948 work progressed on the Kalashnikov rifle. In 1949 one of his rifles, the Avtomat Kalashnikova Obrazets 1947, was accepted by the Soviet Army and quickly dubbed the AK-47.

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